Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

By late summer 1944, the Red Army had crossed the Soviet Union's borders into Poland and Romania and would shortly invade and occupy Bulgaria. A million American and British troops had invaded France in June 1944 and, with the assistance of General Charles de Gaulle's Free French forces, would liberate Paris at the end of August. Athens was occupied by the British in October 1944 and Italy had been liberated as far north as Florence. Despite the tenacious resistance of the German forces, who fought on all three fronts with a determination born of desperation, it was clear that Nazi Germany was doomed. Her casualties in the east were totalled in the millions; in the West and the Mediterranean theaters of war she was unable to match the allies' massive superiority in tanks, aeroplanes, and artillery.In Poland, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, and France, the German forces were fighting savage wars of repression against the peoples of the occupied territories. As Russian armies neared Warsaw, the Polish Home Army raised a heroic insurrection against the Nazi occupiers in August 1944. The Red Army remained passive, however, for two months as SS troops crushed the uprising and killed over 200,000 Polish civilians. Terrible episodes of repression took place elsewhere in Europe. To give just one example, in September 1944, 1,836 civilians, including many children, were murdered at Marzabotto, ... log in or subscribe to read full text